West Springfield breaks ground on new Coburn School
Updated Dec 10, 2020;
WEST SPRINGFIELD — State and local taxpayers will pay $69 million to build a new Philip G. Coburn Elementary School, but it’s the students and teachers who will build its community, educators said at a groundbreaking ceremony this week.
“From the moment I stepped into Coburn School, I knew it was a special place,” recalled Colleen Marcus, a West Springfield School Committee member and former principal of Coburn School, at the Wednesday event. But “it was never the building that mattered, it was the magic happening inside the building.”
She and other school officials told stories about how a true community formed around Coburn, including in the aftermath of the 2011 tornado that ripped through West Springfield’s nearby Merrick neighborhood. More than 100 people made homeless by the tornado were housed in a shelter at the school, and students’ families stepped up with donations.